First confirmed image of a newborn planet captured using SPHERE

Some astronomers have reportedly captured the first confirmed image of a plant being born, said a report in European Southern Observatory on Monday. According to the report, the image has been captured by a group of astronomers at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany’s Heidelberg.

The report said that SPHERE was used to get the photograph of “gas and dust forming near a young star”, which is called PDS 70. SPHERE is a very large telescope that can capture photographs of planets.

The brightness of the planet has been measured at different wavelengths by the astronomers to get detailed information about the properties of the planet. It is located around 3 billion kilometres away from the star. This is roughly equivalent to the distance between the Uranus and the Sun.

There is a dark region at the centre of the image, which is there because of a coronagraph. It is a mask blocking the blinding light of the star in the centre. It would not have been possible to get the photograph in the current form without the mask.

The team was led by Miriam Keppler, who was quoted by saying that the birthplace of the planet is discs around the young star. Further investigations are also being carried out and a team has been constituted for the same.

The team comprises several members of the original team, including Keppler.

According to the report, the finding would not have been possible without SPHERE instrument, which uses the technology of high contrast imaging.